That close reason

Yes, I believe it was condescending and somewhat rude. However there is a mass of questions that fall under a crystal clear criteria:

They're poorly written.

They have formatting issues.

They don't show any research attempts.

They don't show any attempt at solving the problem.

They might be salvageable through extensive editing.

Just as importantly:

They're crystal clear. There is nothing ambiguous about them.

They're not too broad, there is a clear, although often very (too) specific solution to them.

They're not an exact duplicate, although combining two or three other questions could easily lead to their solution.

They're not opinion based. They represent a specific problem.

They're not a library request, though sometimes they're a library request in disguise.

They're about programming.

They're not about a typo.

Here are some example titles, these are all real questions but I did not want to link to them explicitly to not affect their course. I'm pretty confident we've all seen them:

jQuery parallexUiSlider plugin problem, can't find the bug.

Why if statement failing in Python?

Regular expression for telephone not working.

JS function in jquery bug.

Button click not working.

pop is not working properly.

Java program in course not working.

This list goes on, but you get the idea.

All these have uninformative titles, formatting problems, about 30 lines of code with no context in the question. They're all likely to never help anyone in the future, but all have crystal clear solutions experts in their respective tags would know.

In a lot of these (and countless more) the OP has no idea what they're doing, they've found code on the internet, mixed it around and got something. They don't understand why that something doesn't work.

Usually, in these questions, the original poster is rather clueless, helping them on the question is only spoon feeding them, and there is little to no chance the question will help anyone in the future.

None of the current close reasons fit these particular questions

So here's my suggestion: Let's have a close vote reason that makes closing these questions easier. I think it can help reduce the signal to noise ratio and make closing these questions easier.

However, like I started, I believe "Lacks Minimal Understanding" is a rather harsh title. Too specific fits a lot of these, but I don't think it nails it.

So:

Please suggest a close reason that fits these questions.

It should not sound rude like "lacks minimal understanding". It should guide OP.

It should be clear, that the question is closed because it is poorly written, has formatting issues and is too specific.

Most of these questions are "debug my code", or "why does this very specific code not work" questions with no future potential, however they're rarely typos.

These are not just "lacks research" questions. That's just one aspect of them. The other aspects are equally important.

I'd like to think we can come up with something better than "Lacks Minimal Understanding" that still conveys why these questions are problematic so that we can better close them.

Is it just me or are you describing Too Localized?
–
hichris123May 31 '14 at 21:03

24

Perhaps, too localized covers a lot of those issues (but not all of them). Personally I would not object to having "Too Localized" back.
–
Benjamin GruenbaumMay 31 '14 at 21:04

61

sometimes LMU just fits. Q: What line of code does it crash on? A: When I click the Search button. I am not sure you can keep the low quality posts out and still not hurt a few feelings.
–
PlutonixMay 31 '14 at 21:59

13

add something to it like appears to lack... and it becomes less condescending
–
charlietflMay 31 '14 at 23:18

16

It is going to be a very hard sell. The last podcast made it pretty evident that revising the close reason menu is not on the agenda. Jay Hanlon isn't going to let it happen. The "too broad" reason always fits. In an ideal world, such a question would attract entirely too many answers. In the non-ideal real world, you'd have to write the effin' manual to get the user up to speed.
–
Hans PassantMay 31 '14 at 23:56

9

This would not be implemented, period. Who would want even the silliest of questions to be shot down? Traffic is king.
–
devnullJun 1 '14 at 2:52

6

Can you explain 1) how a question can be poorly-written, poorly-formatted and yet manage to be crystal-clear at the same time and 2) why such a question warrants closing and not just editing and/or downvoting (since if a question is crystal-clear it wouldn't make sense to close it as, you know, unclear)?
–
BoltClock♦Jun 1 '14 at 4:26

13

@BoltClock No, often there is enough information ("you missed an ;", "you forgot to include <string>", "you are accessing an array out of bounds", "you are trying to access non-public data via a public interface" etc. On the other hand, "lacks minimal understanding" isn't a great alternative. I would favour re-phrasing and/or extending the "typo error" close reason to something closer in spirit to the old "too localised" one, i.e. something that emphasizes the uselessness of the question and its possible answer to other users of the site.
–
juanchopanzaJun 1 '14 at 7:30

64

I call them 'how do i brain surgery with potato?' posts.
–
Matt JoyceJun 2 '14 at 11:05

27

I'd even be interested in knowing exactly why a small degree of rudeness is a particularly bad thing. I've encountered, and successfully gotten over, rudeness before. Being an adult helps with that.
–
user2338816Jun 2 '14 at 11:25

62

I'd say, that we simply need a reason, which gently and politely says: "We are here to help you solve your problem; we will not freely write or debug code for you. Please don't abuse our generosity". Let's be honest - this is precisely how Stackoverflow works. This is the precise reason question doesn't belong here. Leaving the question open often leads to someone point-hungry debugging it and pointing out the problem. And in result we teach people, that they will find such help here. This is why such questions should be closed instead of only downvoted.
–
SpookJun 2 '14 at 12:18

16

They have this listed under the off-topic reason on SF "Questions must demonstrate a minimal understanding of the problem being solved. Try including attempted solutions, why they didn't work, and the expected results. See How can I ask better questions on Server Fault? for further guidance." I don't understand why SO cannot have a similar reason.
–
just.another.programmerJun 2 '14 at 13:04

23

+1 "the OP has no idea what they're doing, they've found code on the internet, mixed it around and got something." ... and then asked us "fix it for me".
–
SparkyJun 2 '14 at 17:13

15

+1 I want to be a part of a site for professional software developers. SO would be a much nicer place (at least for me) if there were only real programmers writing questions and answers. crappy questions should be automatically migrated to "yahoo answers" ;)
–
MichaelJun 2 '14 at 17:52

25

I'm touched by your optimism, @Michael... But from what I've seen, all too many professional software developers are asking really, really terrible questions. If only doing something for a living was a guarantee of competence...
–
Shog9♦Jun 2 '14 at 18:03

22 Answers
22

Let me know if I'm misjudging the type of questions you're talking about here (although I think the below reason would still be useful even if I am)...

It seems like we're largely talking about "fix my code" questions.

What about:

Questions asking why code isn't working should show an attempt to reduce the code to the shortest program necessary to reproduce the problem, clearly describe the actual and desired behaviour (including any error messages and indicating the corresponding lines, if applicable), describe the troubleshooting steps taken thus far (including attempts at debugging the code) and be written in a way that makes the question useful to future visitors.

... or something like that.

Questions that should be closed and I imagine might fall under "lacks minimal understanding" but aren't "fix my code" questions, I typically vote to close as too broad / unclear - because, without some idea of what the user knows, we have no idea where to start explaining.

I like this. I think this is what the "off topic -> insufficient information to diagnose the problem" close reason should say. Then it would apply not only to questions with insufficient information, but also questions that dump tons of code with no evident attempt to debug it. You can't with good conscience close those as lacking sufficient information, but they certainly need to be closed.
–
Cody GrayJun 1 '14 at 2:09

2

If we can ever convince the community team that this is a good idea, they will probably complain that it's slightly too long. People won't read all of it. But I guess we can cross the bridge of shortening it when we come to it.
–
Cody GrayJun 1 '14 at 2:09

A major problem. People posting the low grade, fix-my-big-ugly-ball-of-mud-code-for-free questions often can't, or won't, search or abstract from prior examples. Let's face it, if the OP is having trouble with fooBar(xyzzy,b[28]) and there is a previous answer about fooBar(baz,True) or maybe the OP has a for loop, and the canonical example is using while, they'd rather have their question answered than be asked to read, think, take time, and maybe still get it wrong. If it is a commercial user, the personalized attention equates to actual dollars in their pocket while we work for free
–
PaulJun 1 '14 at 8:33

2

@immibis I'm assuming that was tongue-in-cheek. :-) But it is worth emphasizing anyway that your proposed phrasing suffers from the same problem as the current phrasing. Rather than coming right out and stating what the problem is, it dances around the problem. Hans Passant has referred to this as a "weasel words" problem; I think that's accurate. We need to lead with the most important problem with the question: there is no minimal example given that demonstrates the issue. Not only is that clearer, it is also actionable. It gives us a prayer the asker might be able to fix the problem.
–
Cody GrayJun 1 '14 at 9:12

@Basic Too broad. Possibly too many parts, probably too many ways to do different parts, definitely too much explanation required given that we don't know what OP knows.
–
DukelingJun 2 '14 at 18:49

1

@Dukeling The problem is, we do know what the OP knows... Too little to be able to Google an example or understand rudimentary code (let alone what debugging is!). I try to bear in mind the Four stages of competence and be aware of areas where I'm in stage #4, but sometimes I think the answer really should be "Read a website (or book) to learn the most basic elements of the technology you're using". I don't mean the minimum to code well, just the minimum to be able to read simple code, declare a variable, call a method, etc...
–
BasicJun 2 '14 at 19:03

@Basic If we need to explain all the basic elements of the technology, that's definitely too broad. If we don't know whether we should, that's unclear (as the question is stated, OP might know how to do each part and is just struggling to put it together, or they know so little that they wouldn't be able to tell PHP code from assembler). I'm not saying these reasons are ideal (they possibly leave OP confused), but since SE doesn't want us to close questions just because they lack research effort, they're probably not going to give us a better reason for these types of questions.
–
DukelingJun 2 '14 at 19:17

1

@Cody, custom close reasons have a character limit of 400 characters. The example reason here is 484, so it needs to be chopped down a bit. How about: "This question appears to be off-topic because it lacks sufficient information to diagnose the problem. Describe your problem in more detail (desired behavior, actual behavior, error messages, troubleshooting/debugging attempts) and/or include a minimal example in the question itself."
–
jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 23:43

1

@jmac Are you sure? The text box allows for 500. If the limit is indeed 400, I'd rather try to shorten mine than just making a minor change to the reason we're not really happy with, e.g.: Questions asking why code isn't working should show an attempt to reduce the code to [the shortest program that reproduces the problem](http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve), clearly describe the actual and desired behaviour (including any error messages, if applicable), describe the troubleshooting steps taken thus far (including attempts at debugging the code) and be useful to future visitors.
–
DukelingJun 3 '14 at 0:11

@Dukeling, at least on The Workplace I only have 400 characters to use. Maybe SO is special? The current suggested copy to me is pretty unclear since it mentions a bunch of things: (1) attempt to provide an mcve, (2) describe actual, desired behavior and troubleshooting attempts, (3) be useful to future visitors. (1) and (2) are good, but the copy isn't, (3) is problematic since it requires us to be oracles.
–
jmac♦Jun 3 '14 at 0:16

2

@jmac But I see "lacks sufficient information" as factually inaccurate - we shouldn't have to, and I very rarely do, but I'm often perfectly capable of copying the code in the question into an IDE (and writing the surrounding code, in some cases) and testing it to see the error, or reading the code in-depth to find the problem, so there is, strictly speaking, sufficient information. I see some merit in pointing out why the problem is a problem, but I see more merit in giving detailed advice regarding how to fix it (a rules-are-rules-deal-with-it mindset, providing more details in the help center).
–
DukelingJun 3 '14 at 0:45

1

look at my questions on akka for instance. I dont have a flaming clue what im doing, yet have seriously put effort into trying. Looking back at them they are nonsense garble - but only because i dont understand the docs and have noone in the know to guide me.
–
John NicholasJun 5 '14 at 15:58

This is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. It is not a how-to-program site, nor is it a debug-code-for-free site. A professional or enthusiast programmer would have enough background knowledge, interest in the craft of programming, and respect for other programmers to perform reasonable steps to narrow the focus of the question, perform some debugging and to clearly state the core problem they face. Until those are done, the question and its answers are unlikely to be useful to anyone other than the asker of the question.

+1 I use the phrase "professional and enthusiast" a lot in some of my comments (and in an answer to Should “Professionals and enthusiasts” be qualified in the help center?). There's a whole realm of unexperienced programmers around, and some of them are professional or enthusiastic. Ignorance alone isn't a problem. Too many, though, are not at all enthusiastic about programming. Enthusiastic programmers, even if they have no clue what's going on, would think that they do, or hope that they do. Some questions have mistakes due to ignorant
–
Joshua TaylorMay 31 '14 at 22:02

9

enthusiasm, but that's easily corrected. The problem questions we get are often times due to ignorant apathy. If not "lacks minimal understanding", I'd settle (perhaps even prefer) "shows no sign of professionalism or enthusiasm".
–
Joshua TaylorMay 31 '14 at 22:02

56

+100Not a question a professional or enthusiast programmer would ask could be a top-level close category with an appropriate menu of close reasons and commentary breaking out the examples you mention, gimme-the-codez, and others.
–
PaulJun 1 '14 at 0:15

90

No, please don't. We have plenty of "beginner" questions that are extremely useful to beginners. Some experienced programmers will likely use this reason left and right to close questions they think are too basic.
–
DukelingJun 1 '14 at 1:42

Yes, please do! Beginners to programming can phrase a question in a professional manner, and show the appropriate research for their level. That a question is "basic" is irrelevant, it's down to how well the question has been asked, and that can be made clear in the description beside the close reason, possibly along with a one-line reminder of the essence of stackoverflow.com/help/mcve.
–
ClickRickJun 1 '14 at 2:33

3

@Dukeling: Are you arguing to nuke the part about "background knowledge" but keep the rest?
–
Ben VoigtJun 1 '14 at 4:12

11

How professional is "professional"? How enthusiastic is "enthusiast"? The wording you've suggested encompasses any question that meets OP's criteria, but that's because it broadly describes any question that should be closed for any reason, plus many more that shouldn't be closed at all. It would be used in the same way as too localised or not a real question, which is to say as a general purpose "i can't articulate what's wrong" close reason. Incidentally, this is why those two reasons were taken away in the first place.
–
AsadJun 1 '14 at 7:16

38

The argument about the subjectivity of this close reason is not valid. The argument is that it is a "blow off" of the OP. However the OP has wasted our time. A "blow off" response seems entirely appropriate. I don't know about the rest of you professional enthusiasts, but I certainly did not sign up to FREELY DISTRIBUTE THE KNOWLEDGE THAT HAS TAKEN ME DECADES to learn to a bunch of people that can't even be bothered to TRY to help themselves. To people that don't write a complete thought - not because they can't, but because they are lazy and really just don't care.
–
Sam AxeJun 1 '14 at 7:37

6

@Dan-o This reason implies a lot more than just trying and it almost certainly is subjective and will be misused (enough background knowledge, interest and reasonable steps are all subjective) ... and, just by the way, lack of research (by itself) isn't a reason to close the question, and it never will be judging by SE responses on the matter (despite me wanting it so) (although it does apply here to a fair extent).
–
DukelingJun 1 '14 at 8:52

9

@Joshua Taylor: "shows no sign of professionalism or enthusiasm" could likewise be used to close joke questions 8)
–
BoltClock♦Jun 2 '14 at 5:17

5

An answer that goes straight for the first words in the first item in the site's Help Center is about as clear as it gets. My kind of answer; hard to side-step.
–
user2338816Jun 2 '14 at 11:18

20

The group "professional or enthusiast" group and the "new to coding" groups are not orthogonal. You want to close bad questions, not newbie questions.
–
eykanalJun 2 '14 at 13:54

17

This is way too general. You could use this reason for any closed question. Of course it covers all the examples, because it covers everything. You have to think about all the other things this will cover that aren't closed now, or are closed for more specific reasons.
–
David Fullerton♦Jun 2 '14 at 17:38

10

Way too elitist, it makes the person(s) who closed the question look like snobs. I feel this close reason will fit way too many questions, it seems a bit open-ended.
–
Kevin BJun 3 '14 at 17:19

It pains me when I hear people say that our sites are unfriendly, or that we chase new users away. But it’s a hard problem, because our highest priority has always been the quality of content on our sites. And it still is. We can’t lower our standards. We won’t.

But we have been working hard to make our sites more welcoming, reminding users that feedback can be clear and nice, and helping new users learn the ropes before they get frustrated. And, as of today, we’ve completely overhauled closing.

How Will This Help Content?

So let's say we do implement this as a close reason again in some form and that everyone who has close vote privileges use the close reason in the exact same objective way -- what are we accomplishing? Will providing this message to users give them something actionable to improve the quality of content?

So that's it. I'm just not pro/enthusiastic enough to post my question on Stack Overflow. This is a deficiency in me as a human being, and there is simply no way to fix that. Not trying to pick on Raedwald here (he did answer the question as-asked), but this isn't going to accomplish the goals in the about page. Denying content for reasons that cannot be corrected may prevent bad content, but it certainly won't help introduce good content, it won't improve existing content, and it won't teach users how to distinguish between the two.

The message is being used to punish. And that's not very nice. Nor is it very useful in achieving our goals. And that's why it was removed.

Instead of a special punitive close reason, just downvote it. The helpful hover over the question downvote button says, "This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful". That's a single click. It is what downvotes were designed for. It will hide the question out of sight and out of mind. And that's good. If the user cares they will try to figure out how to improve it. They will try to figure out the problem themselves and edit their question, or put more thought in to their next one. And that's good for site quality and achieving our goals.

Having a separate close reason solely for you to punish users who don't meet your quality criteria may be cathartic, but it isn't very practical. Most of us started off with some questionable quality questions. While I'm sure Benjamin is a stellar coder, there is little doubt that his third question could very well have been closed with this reason. Fortunately for all of us having this discussion, it was just downvoted, and we have a tremendous contributor with us because he took that reception as a reason to learn, improve, and contribute more quality content, not walk away angry at the SO community.

Question quality is an issue. That's what was discussed on the last podcast at length, but the solution isn't to ostracize and punish askers of a single poor question (which is what this close reason would do), it's to improve the system to minimize their impact (especially the frustration they cause), without being mean or assuming they are the problem rather than their content.

+1 for this. The question here should be how can we encourage people to downvote crap questions rather than simply leaving it, or answering them (shudder). I do however, disagree with your statement that the proposed close reaon would deny content which can't be corrected, and your assumptions based on that. This close reason would be a big hint to the OP to go and do some research, and do some work themselves. If they solve the problem, then great; otherwise, return to Stack Overflow and ask a new (better!) question based on the research/ attempts they've since made.
–
MattJun 2 '14 at 10:01

... this will help introduce good content, and it will teach users how to distinguish between the two. However people downvoting achieves exactly the same goal; and downvoting is the tool that should be used here (as, per the hover title, is what it was designed for), and not VtCing
–
MattJun 2 '14 at 10:06

5

@Matt, the point is that a close reason that is dismissive of the user rather than the content sends a strong message to the user that their content, no matter how hard they try, is not appropriate because of who they are rather than what they write. And that's not good. Almost all of us have bad questions, but most of us learn. And what would have happened if one of our first interactions was someone telling us that we don't belong, that we aren't developer-esque enough to talk here? That is going to deny otherwise good users who can create good content.
–
jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 12:38

I agree with you there, but that's just the wording in the close reason. However you want to word it, we don't want them to post questions which don't show any research effort into the problem at hand. Suggestions such as meta.stackoverflow.com/a/257887/444991 target the content posted rather than the user. I strongly dislike the close-reason proposed in meta.stackoverflow.com/a/257874/444991
–
MattJun 2 '14 at 12:57

3

The big problem with down-voting is that once down-voted a question rarely recovers, even if the writer improves it to the point where as a new question it would have received several up-votes. This is also true of questions placed on hold/closed. If a question receives a poor reception it's often much more efficacious for the writer quickly to delete it and later post a new, better, question, than it is to try to salvage the original one. So the real issue is how to encourage writers to delete their own bad questions and start again?
–
Ian GoldbyJun 2 '14 at 14:12

@Matt, maybe you're right. When I read the OP, I read (despite all the lukewarm protestations to the contrary) "I really hate it when people ask questions I don't think are up to SO standards, and really wish we had a reason that let me just close the damned things by pointing out (in a nice way) that the asker doesn't have a clue", and I don' think that is doable because the intent isn't along with the general goals of SO. Again, could be wrong.
–
jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 14:16

2

@Ian, editing a heavily downvoted post will bump it up to the front page (currently, who knows after the last podcast), and if it gets 2 upvotes for every 5 downvotes will recover any lost rep even if it stays in the negative. I'm sure you can make a data.se query that looks for posts downvoted more than X times, then edited, that recover the rep. If the author deletes and reposts a better question, that works too. If they continue to post poor questions they get a question ban. And all without having to deal with a single menu. Why exactly do we want to close?
–
jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 14:19

2

If you've had a question put on hold you're probably more interested in getting it reopened than in the rep damage of the down-votes. The problem I was referring to is that the barrier to getting a question reopened is rather high compared to if the question had been written well in the first place; it relies on high-reputation users noticing the improvements and bothering to take action, which I know does not always happen. Sorry if that's off-topic here. Maybe the guidance should be to delete rather than edit your own bad questions.
–
Ian GoldbyJun 2 '14 at 14:29

3

@IanGoldby: It's interesting what you say about a down-voted question not recovering. Even if you do end up with positive net repuation like jmac says, seeing the negative score next to your post is pretty demoralizing, and I'd still feel like I failed even if I gained reputation overall. One solution would be to reset votes to 0 when a question gets reopened (and to hide votes when it gets closed?). It sort of begs the question... why don't we just delete posts immediately (possibily excluding duplicates), rather than marking them as closed. They're a wasteground.
–
MattJun 2 '14 at 14:42

@Ian, I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that questions should be closed without downvotes to prevent deletion? Because to me it seems these types of questions are closed and downvoted. And if they are closed, then they require not only upvotes, but also 5 reopen votes before getting answered, and that makes it more likely that someone will just delete the sucker and recreate as it takes more effort. But I could be wrong. Care to make a data.se query to check what % of questions are edited after 5 downvotes + close vs. just 5 downvotes?
–
jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 14:44

2

... if we "close" a question, remove it from the site (except for the OP). Show them a message saying their post was removed because of the reason it was closed for. Maybe the users next post after one that got closed should be routed to a queue like proposed here to give them feedback before letting them back into the wild. This stops the crap content lingering around on the website.
–
MattJun 2 '14 at 14:45

2

@Matt, I see where your heart is on this one, but this doesn't seem like it has a good chance of scaling. For people who want to improve, they shouldn't need their hand held to figure out how to do that (in other words, they don't need additional special warnings, or a special queue to review their next submission). And if they don't want to improve, then we end up investing a lot of effort in to someone who may not actually care to put any in of their own. Downvotes are wonderful because they solve the problem easily -- no fuss, no muss.
–
jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 14:48

jmac: I'm not bothered about them having their hand held or not. What I am bothered about is their crap posts lingering on the site and drowing the good content. Their previous post being closed (deleted?) is a good signal that their next post will also be crap; the review queue would be an opportunity to prevent their next post getting onto the website in the first place. For all I care, it could function exactly like the current close vote queue (even with the same close options).
–
MattJun 2 '14 at 14:53

... if the community vote for the post "to be closed", we show a warning to the user saying their post was still not good enough, and the process starts again. If the community vote that the post is OK, let it onto the site. The problem with just using downvotes, is that a) people don't use it enough, and b) it doesn't prevent the content from being posted in the first place.
–
MattJun 2 '14 at 14:54

6

Allow me to put forth a radical suggestion -- rather than providing people who are uncomfortable downvoting with a separate tool that doesn't fix the problem (a close reason that was eliminated for good cause), we just tell folks that they should be downvoting? So crazy, it just might work. What do you think @Matt? If there is a benefit in reinventing the wheel, I'd love to know what it is
–
jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 14:57

I don't know if this helps you here on Stack Overflow, because I'm not heavily involved in the Stack Overflow close-voting community (I don't have the reputation points yet, though I do flag for closure in extreme cases). But on English Language Learners, one of our custom off-topic reasons is this:

This question should include more details than have been provided here. Please edit to add the research you have done in your efforts to answer the question, or provide more context. See: Details, Please.

The meta post it links to (Details, Please) is also a good read on this topic. This reason basically says show us a little effort, and give us a little more information. A copy-pasted paragraph/code dump that says "What does this mean/how do I fix it" is not what we're looking for.

These seem to be similar messages we're trying to send, so this might help you out a bit in wording the close reason you want to create.

Playing Devil's Advocate: this sounds like "Unclear what you're asking" -- how do you guys distinguish between the two? If the question is clear, why are more details necessary? If the question isn't, then isn't that the issue (not the lack of research)?
–
jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 6:09

4

@jmac "What does 'enlightened' mean?" is clear, but doesn't show any effort of research. "I found this definition for 'enlightened' online: [definition, example sentences]. However I still don't understand, because [explanation of what you tried to figure out and why you're still confused]. Why is 'enlightened' used in this context, and what does it mean?" Shows effort and helps us answer better; there are so many answers to "what does X mean". When we know why someone's confused, we know where to start in the answer.
–
WendiKiddJun 2 '14 at 19:44

"What does 'enlightened' mean?" is unclear what you're asking in my book. If the issue is a lack of detail, then either vote to close and/or downvote and/or comment asking for clarification. In the meantime, if asking for dictionary definitions is a common problem, I suggest taking a look at your help center to make sure that you clearly state that doing such is a no-no, and how to improve a post other than just asking the definition. Effort should not be a criteria, nor should amount of detail -- questions that follow the guidelines and are clear should be okay.
–
jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 23:24

Look... I get that folks liked that particular close reason. So did I. But it was widely misunderstood and misused, by the folks using it, by the folks asking questions, and especially by the folks reading questions. What's the point of bothering with a description if it is effectively meaningless?

This close reason should cover the bulk of what was being legitimately closed for "minimal understanding". Questions where...

...No specific problem is identified

...A specific scenario or set of requirements are described, but the asker fails to identify what he wants as a result of this.

...The wording or formatting is so poor as to make reading the question exceptionally difficult.

Questions of the form, "there is a problem of some sort in my code somewhere, please fix it" are not clear questions. Yes, any reasonably-competent programmer familiar with the topic can daniel their way to a solution, but your ability to synthesize a problem statement where none is provided is no more an indication of clarity than is your ability to mentally insert missing letters into "Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy".

There are three types of questions:

Those that clearly state a specific problem and provide sufficient information for knowledgeable answerers to identify a solution.

Those that fail to state a specific problem, but provide sufficient contextual information for knowlegeable answerers to guess at both a problem and a solution.

Those that fail to identify either a problem, a context, or a desired outcome.

Only #1 is not "unclear"! #2 could be edited by any sufficiently-skilled person to make it clear. #3 requires input from either the author or a psychic to become clear. Therefore...

Barring the intervention of an editor, #2 and #3 should be closed as "unclear what you're asking."

But I saw a reasonably-scoped question with a clear problem statement and sufficient context and I didn't like it for some reason!

Well, then down-vote it and get on with your life. Realistically, we're not even able to close all of the blatantly-unclear questions that are asked each day, so begging for another close reason to use on borderline questions isn't going to help - instead, you're just throwing away a vote you could've put to better use elsewhere. Close votes are not a super downvote - alone, they're actually less effective than a downvote would be, so if you're voting to close and not down-voting, you're throwing away the chance to have a direct, immediate effect on a question for the chance that 4 other people will agree with your hair-splitting.

I can't tell you to ignore problems you consider important, but I strongly recommend you focus on the most severe problems before worrying about edge-cases. There is no shortage of very bad, very unclear questions asked every single day - if we ever get to the point where that's not the case, then... These borderline cases will be a good problem to have.

BTW - I didn't link to them because that creates skew.
–
Benjamin GruenbaumJun 2 '14 at 17:13

6

I like this way of looking at it; but the current verbiage of "unclear what you're asking" doesn't cover it hugely. If we had one like: "we're currently unable to synthesise your question into one based on general principles" it'd cover what you describe better for most people reading the reason.
–
BenJun 2 '14 at 17:14

2

It's those #2 cases which cause a lot of problems though - a few people not very experienced with a given topic falsely declare that it can only be answered with a guess, which means that before someone with actual, relevant knowledge and experience can answer it, they have to get the erroneous closure reversed. Ultimately, "closing" is a counterproductive status, as all it really does is prevent answers. If there must be a binding-on-all "disapproval" status, it would be far better if it were one which merely neutralized the possibility of earning any positive reputation from the question.
–
Chris StrattonJun 2 '14 at 17:19

7

What doesn't "Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to highlight exactly what you need." cover, @Ben? I have little hope of anyone who can't follow that guidance being able to get anything from "unable to synthesize..."
–
Shog9♦Jun 2 '14 at 17:19

Yeah, that's another reason I prefer "unclear" to "minimal understanding", @Chris - it's possible for folks to be clearly wrong in their assessment of a question.
–
Shog9♦Jun 2 '14 at 17:25

2

My wording isn't any better I know! But, people assume that reason means add missing code or more "stuff". Not, "make you question more generic", but then again maybe I've misread the emphasis of your answer.
–
BenJun 2 '14 at 17:26

1

As Ben said (and as Benjamin said in the question), the problem with "unclear what you're asking" here is that it's perfectly clear what the OP is asking; he's asking us to fix his code and do the debugging for him. The part As it's currently written, it’s hard to tell exactly what you're asking just doesn't fit here. Perhaps changing that sentence to something like Without more specific details, it's hard to diagnose your problem would help.
–
MattJun 2 '14 at 17:53

"Not generic enough" isn't usually the problem here, @Ben. There's a world of difference between a specific problem and a vague problem with specific code.
–
Shog9♦Jun 2 '14 at 17:57

2

Ok, I read this - "Get on with your life" is probably the easiest reply to make from your end and one of the least effective ones imo. Closing questions that fall under this category (long, specific clear and often "debug my code") is an effective way to minimize the time people waste on them that could otherwise be spent on much more needing questions. By not closing them I am legitimizing them which in turn causes more such questions to come which deteriorates the quality of questions on the site. This makes it harder for me to find questions to answer and get answers for my questions.
–
Benjamin GruenbaumJun 2 '14 at 21:49

4

So how much work are you willing to devote to such a question, @benjamin? Remember, it takes anywhere from 5 close votes to 5 + 3 delete votes before that question actually disappears - meanwhile, that downvote starts penalizing it immediately.
–
Shog9♦Jun 2 '14 at 23:12

2

@Shog9 "we're not even able to close all of the blatantly-unclear questions that are asked each day, so begging for another close reason to use on borderline questions isn't going to help" => That is a weak argument - the existence of amazingly bad questions shouldn't prevent bad questions from being closed too. Either you want to improve content, in which case "every little helps", or you don't...
–
assyliasJun 2 '14 at 23:54

3

Except... Every little bit doesn't help, @assylias. Not when it comes to close votes. Some little bits help, some just spread already scarce resources a little bit thinner. So at some point, you gotta ask yourself: is this question hurting the site, in a way that justifies the resources needed to close it, review it, perhaps delete it... Or is its most likely future one of obscurity, destined to neither help nor hurt anything. Because if you don't ask yourself this question - if you treat voting and closing as two degrees of the same - then at best you're just wasting time; at worst...
–
Shog9♦Jun 3 '14 at 4:14

1

I do not see where your description solves "here is my entire 1000 line code base, and it errors when I do X. Why? Fix please.", which is a horrible question for stack overflow: it isn't searchable for future problem seekers, and it clutters up the front page. Such a question should be closed and deleted. Yet there is sufficient information (more than sufficient), and the question is clear (why does it crash, how do I stop it from crashing). By the above logic, one should down vote and move on, not close and delete.
–
YakkJun 4 '14 at 21:17

1

There are two problems with those, @Yakk. The simple one is that they should nearly always be closed as duplicates of a less convoluted "How do I fix ErrorY when doing X?" question. The harder one is that they're simply too long; I kinda think we should be blocking these outright in most cases. Consider kicking off a separate discussion for this... With actual examples!
–
Shog9♦Jun 5 '14 at 16:05

All your points seem to be well covered with "Lacks minimal effort" phrase. After all, it's what we are all talking about implicitly - why not make it explicit. Also, it doesn't sound so rude as it does not suggest that OP is stupid ("understanding") - it's just saying they could do better.

"I don't understand how code works" should be outside the scope of Stack Overflow. We're here to solve specific, answerable problems. While the questions you've posted above are answerable, they're not specific. There are plenty of great places to learn how code works, how to build a web page and how to interact with a compiler. Stack Overflow is not a school and should not be treated as such.

Lack of minimal understanding is a perfectly valid close reason and should be brought back. LoMU closers should also comment with links to tutorials and the documentation, so that OP can be brought up to minimal understanding.

To be more specific, LoMU should be "If I answered this question (and included a basic explanation of the code therein), OP would still not understand why it works". There is a bit of subjectivity here - but that's OK. Humans work like that, even if compilers don't.

Good examples of this principle include jQuery questions where OP has dropped a plugin in and doesn't understand why the problem doesn't magically solve itself. Their problem isn't the datepicker, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of how front-end development works.

Disagree that the close-voter should comment with links to tutorials — that's a lot of repetitive grunt work. Perhaps links to tutorials should be added to the tag wikis? & A link to that page provided in the close message?
–
anotherdaveJun 2 '14 at 8:30

I use "typo" in the broad sense of "problem specific to the asker"
–
Jan DvorakJun 1 '14 at 7:09

4

@JanDvorak, Does that work? In low traffic tags? It's hard to get all but the most obviously bad Q's closed in my tags (Except for dupes, now that we have gold-badge powers). ... Also It feels kinda hinky to me if the problem really isn't a typo but several poor practices.
–
Brock AdamsJun 1 '14 at 7:13

17

This is pretty much a rewording of "too localized".
–
AsadJun 1 '14 at 7:22

I feel like a lot of Sass questions fall into this category. A good chunk of questions there are "How do I convert this LESS code to Sass (or vice versa)" or "How can I refactor this CSS (or Sass) to be more DRY/efficient/etc." In many of these instances RTFM would have been my preferred closing method, especially since both LESS and Sass have very short docs, 1 and 3 pages respectively.
–
cimmanonJun 2 '14 at 10:55

Suffers from the same problem as Too Localized - evaluating what will/won't help others is an exercise in predicting the future. Much prefer specific reasons: "won't help others because it is too unclear for them to find" or "won't help others because it was a trivial typing error / omission" etc.
–
Shog9♦Jun 2 '14 at 17:28

3

@Shog9 I agree that more specific reasons are better, but all close reasons have some degree of predicting what other people will find useful in the future. Who's to say that a typo won't result in a highly upvoted question.
–
mike zJun 2 '14 at 19:31

Past experience with them, @mike. That question is popular because it's weird - there are a few others like it, and all of them have been controversial. Run of the mill "my cat leapt upon my keyboard and now my program has bugs" questions are rarely so clear-cut. Of course, you're correct: all close reasons rely on the judgement of actual humans... All the more reason to make sure those humans are at least somewhat on the same page when using them.
–
Shog9♦Jun 3 '14 at 4:34

I completely understand 100% why this might seem like a good label to explain why a question was closed after the fact,

but…

The problem with listing this as an explicit close reason is you are over-training the community to look for this as a reason to close without describing what the actual problem is. You might as well label it "not a good question." That's just not terribly helpful… or prescriptive.

To the end user and anyone else looking on, this doesn't describe why the question was closed at all. Here is how this admittedly rude conversation looks to just about everyone else:

User Seeking Help:Can you explain how {x} works?

Community:"We are closing this because you don't understand the subject."

User:"That's why I am asking the question, duh."

The new close reasons were designed specifically to steer away from that type of unproductive and unhelpful dialog.

Giving someone an answer to their question that they have no hope of understanding is certainly nicer to the person that asked the question. It doesn't seem nearly as rude as telling them they wouldn't understand the answer, but both are equally unhelpful, as in both cases the user still doesn't understand the answer to their problem.
–
ServyJun 2 '14 at 20:13

2

I agree with this answer. In fact I agree with it so much that I even opened a question about it in Meta Stack Overflow, in fact - this is that question. I do not think "Lacks minimal understanding" is a good close reason, I think it's rude and condescending - in fact, that's the first sentence in my answer. I'm asking about an alternative on how to deal with these questions, a different close reason for a specific subset of "lacks minimal understanding" - how would I deal with it? I really only care about these questions taking attention from other ones.
–
Benjamin GruenbaumJun 2 '14 at 23:24

8

-1. The problem is not explaining how {x} works. The problem is explaining how {x} works to someone who skipped the explanations of {a} to {w} and now expects a stand-alone answer to explain {x} without relying on prior knowledge. And of course, someone else in turn will ask about {y} and the whole circus has to start from {a} again.
–
MSaltersJun 3 '14 at 7:57

1

@MSalters Agreed. Don't forget people who want answers customized to the corner they've painted themselves into. OP: How do I do X in Javascript? A: Use $('#Id').justDoIt(). OP: -1 That's not Javascript, that's jQuery. A: jQuery is written in Javascript. OP: Sure, but I don't want to load all of jQuery just for this one thing. I really need the JS. A: Well, jQuery is open source, you could look up the code for .justDoIt() and copy the parts you need if you understand it. OP: That might be true, but it doesn't help. I don't have time. But they have time to ask us...
–
PaulJun 9 '14 at 5:15

I have seen "Too Broad" and "Simple Typographical Error" used to address these. I think that those two close reasons are great, and suit a situation that is very often repeated on SO. However, the two reasons leave a gap; as you say, sometimes the question is not too broad, and is not a simple typographical error.

It is still meets some of the criteria for closing mentioned in the text of those two close reasons: unlikely to help future visitors, and a minimal reproducible example would illustrate the problem. In other words, the only real problem is the lack of debugging efforts.

It would be nice to link to some kind of language-agnostic debugging guide. I shouldn't think we would link to such a document on a third-party site. A page similar to help/mcve, but focused on 1) checking official documentation, and 2) enabling any debugging/error information that might be available. In lieu of that, I've linked to help/mcve here:

+1 I think this captures the essence of the problem described in the question very well - let's hope it makes its way to the top despite being 120 points behind because of late appearance!
–
assyliasJun 2 '14 at 23:59

@KevinB "the majority" -- yes, the majority of questions posted on StackOverflow today are general debugging, low-quality questions that lots of people are trying to find lots of creative ways to slow down. Another way of saying this: most of the questions (the majority?) posted on StackOverflow should be closed.
–
Chris BakerJun 3 '14 at 19:03

That's where i disagree. If they fall under one of the existing close reasons, yes, they need to be closed. However, there are many that don't fall under said reasons that just need to be downvoted. Sending these questions into the close review area isn't going to stop the behavior due to the fact that the questions that this reason would close typically get answered pretty quickly.
–
Kevin BJun 3 '14 at 22:18

I dislike these noobish questions just as much as the next serious developer, but i don't see any reason for them not to exist if they aren't duplicates, are clear, and are not too opinionated. Downvote the question if you don't think enough research/debugging was done.
–
Kevin BJun 3 '14 at 22:20

1

@KevinB There seems to be an existential divide -- it isn't just you and I that disagree on this, our entire user base falls into one of two camps. Some see the founding purpose of the site as something that needs to be preserved. To that end, we don't want to be a "welcoming community", we don't want to be a community at all. We want to be a resource. If you subscribe to that idea (and I do), then our system can be seen as a mechanism to enforce an editorial standard. Meaning, we don't want all questions, we want useful questions. Downvoting isn't sufficient, they shouldn't exist.
–
Chris BakerJun 4 '14 at 0:33

In a sense, it's a variant of "too broad", and we can piggyback on the explanation stated there.

An answer to this question would amount to a tutorial. A good question is focused and can be answered by one or at most a few paragraphs which build upon a basic understanding of the technologies used. In this case no compact answer is possible, because any answer would have to include an explanation of many basic ideas. It may be better to read a book or tutorial on the subject first.

I like this. It directly addresses the fundamental lack of understanding the user DOES suffer from, while stating the crux of the problem for SO: "We can't do this for you".
–
Dev KanchenJun 3 '14 at 22:44

The irony is that the tag-wikis often has a lot of reference material and tutorial -- however it is not-obvious for first time users how to access this -- I would suggest that the tag-wikis was made more prominent to first time users.
–
SorenJun 28 '14 at 19:31

I'd much rather we'd be straight with users and tell them that their question was put on hold due to RTFM. Since that probably won't happen, there's a reason the minimal understanding reason was removed, because it was horribly abused.

I agree with the opening sentence. Really, lack of minimal understanding would require deletion, not closing. Is the OP going to come back a couple days later and now have sufficient understanding? Not likely. It would take a longer period of time to get that understanding and by then the OP probably isn't interested in that question any longer. That is the fundamental different between the current close reasons: the others can all be fixed with a little bit of effort, this one maybe not so.
–
demongolemJun 3 '14 at 17:26

Lacks Minimal Google That For You ... :)
–
David ConradJun 9 '14 at 21:13

I'm going to catch a lot of flak for this, but I don't believe that this warrants a close reason on its own.

Here are a few reasons why I feel this way.

Conveys a negative message

Putting a question on hold is meant to allow the OP to work out deficiencies in their questions, with the message being, "If you can edit the question to better fit [the] model, we can get you the help you need."

Putting a question on hold because it lacks sufficient information to answer the question is concise and respectful. So they didn't include the stack trace that they said they were suffering from. The close reason (along with a half a dozen comments) will tell them such.

Putting a question on hold because it was unclear as to what they were asking is concise and respectful. Their question contained a lot of technobabble that wasn't really related to their problem, so the hope/prayer is that the question will be edited into an answerable state.

Putting a question on hold because the person doesn't have a "minimal understanding" of a problem feels like a slap to the face. The primary reason that they're asking anything in the first place is that they don't have an understanding of something.

Now, I'd argue that someone who asked why String word = "word"; System.out.println(word == "word"); returned false simply didn't do the research, or if they're getting some kind of obscure stack trace that comes up within the first five search results simply didn't bother to look it up. The former really should be closed as a duplicate, and the latter should simply be downvoted, which sends a clear-enough signal that the question is not useful to the community.

Questions that warranted that closure reason in the past were usually downvoted to oblivion anyway. Sending the double-whammy seems...overkill here.

Open to abuse

I'll admit that the accuracy of question closure ain't much to be proud of, and it wasn't really much of anything to celebrate when this close reason did exist. But, with the list of titles you're providing here, I'll show you why "Lacks Minimal Understanding" isn't correct to apply here.

jQuery parallexUiSlider plugin problem, can't find the bug.

If the specific part of the problem isn't well isolated; that is, if a whole bunch of code is posted and nothing else, it should be closed as lacks sufficient detail.

If the question is an abstract description of the problem, it might warrant closing as unclear what you're asking.

Why if statement failing in Python?

Probably some rookie misunderstanding the falsy nature of booleans in Python. It happens. I wouldn't bother closing it; rather, look for a duplicate.

Regular expression for telephone not working.

If there's no regex or no test data, lacks sufficient detail.

JS function in jquery bug.

If there's too much code such that the problem isn't isolated, again, unclear what you're asking. Question needs to be narrowed.

Button click not working.

pop is not working properly.

Java program in course not working.

These all merit the same response for me; if there's insufficient detail, it should be closed as such. If there's too much code such that the scope is too broad, it should be closed as such.

Kind of feels like a "quick fix" which doesn't fix anything

A lot of the questions that I see that would fall under your criteria for closure under this are often misunderstood XY problems, or poorly-phrased questions. The knee-jerk reaction to a question like these is to close them, but they probably really need to be edited into shape, or get better clarification from the OP instead. Closing them without really looking at why this question was asked in the first place doesn't prevent people from asking bad questions; it only preserves their ignorance.

So...pretty much what I said above places me in the firm "no" category on this suggestion.

So sick of people complaining about the posts at SO. We need a thread complaining about the threads complaining about the decline in the quality of threads. Get over it people: it's not 2009, and the site was probably never as good as you think it was, you are just confabulating nostalgia. Perhaps make another site for people who already know everything and the questions can be immediately published in Nature and get you that great job you are hankering for.
–
neuronetJun 2 '14 at 0:42

1

@CodyGray: I don't disagree that this is the intent. However, I disagree with the intent. Downvoting prevents the question from more experts seeing it and being dissatisfied with the contents (as well as it appearing on the main screen). Closing it indicates that either the question was a duplicate, is off topic, or is deficient in some manner. Those questions that are simply deficient and have a snowball's chance of being salvaged should be; those that aren't should be downvoted into oblivion. In my mind, downvoting sends the clearer message.
–
MakotoJun 2 '14 at 1:44

Honestly, I'm confused by your comment. I read it a couple of times, and I still don't know what you mean. What I do know is this: I am all for closing and downvoting bad questions. I don't think either one is sufficient.
–
Cody GrayJun 2 '14 at 6:31

@Cody Why do you think it is not sufficient?
–
TrilarionJun 2 '14 at 10:48

@Makoto if there's insufficient detail, it should be closed as such - there isn't insufficient detail. The whole source code is - technically - all you need to diagnose the problem. Also, the question is not too broad. It's usually extremely specific and I guess that's what OP is trying to tell us. You may use one of these reasons, but they simply don't match the actual problem.
–
SpookJun 2 '14 at 12:13

@neuronet I have a better idea: how about visitors to our community function within that community, or THEY can make their own site. You don't come to an established community and demand they accept your idea of what the community should be like. This site was made for a reason, with a purpose in mind, and there is absolutely no reason we should abandon those principles for the sake of appeasing people who can't be asked to participate. We don't need them, they need us. So your attitude is completely backward.
–
Chris BakerJun 2 '14 at 18:01

1

@Chris as long as the whining about the good old days stays in meta, it's fine. The old timers can get their catharsis and slap each other on the back and talk about how things used to be, while SO keeps its focus on programming. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?
–
neuronetJun 2 '14 at 18:09

1

@neuronet easy to walk in as a relative newcomer and be irreverent and snarky, I'm sure. The "old timers", however, have a lot more of their time invested. What you dismissively refer to as whining, reasonable adults call discussion, and if it weren't for such discussions this place would not exist for you to leave your affected blase troll comments. It isn't about "good old days", it is about maintaining the standards that differentiate this place from other widely available resources on the internet. This place has a purpose, and hosting garbage threads noising up Google results isn't it
–
Chris BakerJun 2 '14 at 19:07

@Chris I pretty much agree, I just think it's a Quixotic quest, given what SO has become. Unless measures are taken that are WAY more drastic than adding another reason to close a thread.
–
neuronetJun 2 '14 at 23:19

@CodyGray: What I mean by my comment: the intent is to be negative, whereas I don't feel that question closure is intended to be. That's where I'm drawing my disagreement from primarily. It feels like you're trying to tell the user that they're wrong and bad and should feel bad for not having "minimal understanding". Other closure reasons have a similar, yet less harsh overall tone to them.
–
MakotoJun 2 '14 at 23:32

1

@neuronet I haven't seen anyone arguing seriously for the "good old days", so the attack you're constructing is a straw man. We are arguing against the current state of the site, and the trajectory it is on. We want to improve things for the better, not return to some former state.
–
Cody GrayJun 3 '14 at 5:19

I suppose I see that, @Makoto. I think, though, that this closure reason is special. It probably is "meaner" or "more harsh" than some of the other reasons, but it should only be used in cases where that harshness is deserved. Surely you have to admit there are such cases.
–
Cody GrayJun 3 '14 at 5:20

If a whole bunch of code is posted, that isn't really "lacks sufficient detail"; the problem is, there is altogether too much detail. The question is swamped by irrelevant details.
–
David ConradJun 9 '14 at 21:12

I am pretty sure the OP has no idea of how to go about doing this, but for the sake of not getting flagged as This question appears to be off-topic because it lacks sufficient information to diagnose the problem. Describe your problem in more detail or include a minimal example in the question itself., he just added a random example because there was no flag that covered this type of question at the moment.

The link is to an answer of yours - is that right?
–
pnutsJun 6 '14 at 18:07

@pnuts... sorry, it was to the question, which got edited.
–
A.J.Jun 6 '14 at 23:34

No problem at all, just that I was not expecting you to have contributed an answer in the circumstances you described, so was a bit surprised that was where the link took me (after I had read your answer here).
–
pnutsJun 6 '14 at 23:39

Developing on my comments moments ago, I think we cannot have it as a close reason again (as much as it pains me to admit it). I see two scenarios, the first of which is the only viable one currently

Downvote it. The OP does not have any idea what they are talking about. That is why it is -10.

Delete it. We don't do that here although this might be the logical conclusion to the problem. I say delete not close because as I was pointing out before the OP likely does not have the capability in the near future to improve the question. Too Broad? Can be improved! Duplicate? Can be improved if you can prove your question is slightly different! Unclear? Can be improved!

The problem with downvotes is PRECISELY that they are not a descriptive enough feedback channel, nowhere near as descriptive as closure reasons. Perhaps that's the problem that needs to be fixed.
–
Dev KanchenJun 3 '14 at 22:07

1

Maybe the downvote default text needs to be more visible to the person that was downvoted. When i downvote, it's because the question is unclear or not useful. If the user doesn't understand that, they probably can't be helped anyway. Move on to the next question.
–
Kevin BJun 5 '14 at 15:36

While it is a perfectly valid reason in hindsight for the ones closing the question, "Lacks Minimal Understanding" is not specific enough as feedback for the asker (as mentioned by @Robert Cartaino) and therefore not likely to prevent further such questions from being asked.

The second problem is that questions voted for closure would take a certain amount of time before they are reviewed by a moderator. Downvotes and comments can reach a question a lot faster than an actual closure could, and may provide an opportunity to flag bad questions, that hasn't been used yet.

Suggested Alternative: Make downvotes more informative

Regardless of what the intentions behind designing the downvote and flag/close systems were, people who post poorly-informed questions also do not see downvotes as an incentive to improve the questions (see the pattern, they are not extracting useful information from visible symptoms).

If downvotes do not appear good enough to stop the onslaught of poorly informed questions (and if a new close reason appears to be required), then perhaps the solution is to MAKE THE DOWNVOTES JUST AS INFORMATIVE AS FLAG/CLOSE REASONS.

Throw up a small list of reasons the user MAY select when downvotingthe question:

1. Does not provide sufficient detail to recreate
the problem 2. Does not narrow down the scope of the
question/problem 3. Can be solved by use of a compiler/debugger
4. RTFM

People are far more likely to click a checkbox when downvoting than spending time to write a detailed comment. Keeping this optional makes sure the general pace of interaction with the site is not affected.

If a question gets a minimum number of downvotes, show a big banner above the question:

"This question has been downvoted by the community due to being
xxxxx",

where "xxxx" is the most popular reason for the downvotes. The banner marks just as big a warning sign as a "closed question" banner usually is, that these kinds of questions need to be improved before being acceptable on SO.

Additionally, a tooltip for the downvote button could show all the reasons selected so far by users (not just the top reason) for downvoting this question. This would be especially useful for questions with that don't have enough downvotes to trigger a "Downvoted by community" banner. It would provide quick, low-moderation-effortconstructive criticism for users who want to improve their questions, without embarassing them with a big banner.

Afterthought: Implication for "flagging" workflow

To be perfectly honest, I haven't used the "flag" function thus far, and always associated that with "spam"/inflammatory posts rather than ones with a quality issue. My primary tool for calling out a question or answer's quality is by using the downvote, and sometimes, when there is hope for improvement, a comment.

I suspect a lot of other users - especially low-medium activity users like myself who haven't necessarily read all the rules, came here on a "drive-by shooting" and stuck as they found the community to be more and more useful - also see the flag button the same way and continue to use the downvote exclusively for question-quality issues.

And some of that confusion, as much as it does owe to not all users RTFM, also stems from the fact that there IS an overlap in the function of the downvote and flag buttons around the issue of quality, and perhaps it's time to remove that.

Two steps in this direction would be:
I. Remove "this question does not meet the site's standards" from the reasons list provided for "flagging" a question. This would mark a clear separation between the INTENT of flagging a question versus down-voting it.

II. Let downvoted questions populate a separate queue for closure by moderators, being separate from questions flagged for being spam/promotional or posts for being inflammatory. All this might make prioritization of attention a little simpler.

Disclaimers:
- I do not know what workflow the moderators see, so my recommendation on separating flagging/downvotes is based on my browsing a few other questions/wiki related to this, and guesswork. Also I understand this would imply truly major changes, and I may not understand the implications of it. This is why it is mentioned as an afterthought.
- My primary suggestion of making downvotes more informative, still stands.

I'm suggesting this as a functional ALTERNATIVE to bringing back the "Lacks minimal understanding" close reason. My point is that the need for LMU cannot be addressed by close reasons, but by the method I've suggested. So I don't see the discussion addressing this fact if it is posted in a separate thread.
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Dev KanchenJun 3 '14 at 22:11

Down-voting, closing, flagging are different things. Closing/flagging is for post that need to be removed for some reason or the other. Down-voting is marking a post as bad and/or incorrect, but not necessarily off-topic for the site. But of course, down-voting and closing/flagging can be combined.
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LundinJun 5 '14 at 6:37

Yes but my point is that bad questions ARE down-voted too, might as well use that as a tool to fight them, with meaningful, timely information, instead of relying just on closure which definitely takes more time and effort than downvotes do. Also, downvotes provide an opportunity for the asker to improve the question. Right now improvement depends on somebody posting a helpful comment as to WHAT needs to be improved. Why not use downvotes (used/abused more widely than comments) to provide that information instead.
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Dev KanchenJun 5 '14 at 7:26

After visiting this question I must say that "Lacks Minimal Understanding" close reason is needed. In this case it's even worse. This question attracts many answers and all of them can be condensed to "It's impossible". Moreover, the OP "knows better" — just read the comments to the answers.

It doesn't fall under

Questions asking why code isn't working should show an attempt to reduce the code to the shortest program necessary to reproduce the problem, clearly describe the actual and desired behaviour (including any error messages and indicating the corresponding lines, if applicable), describe the troubleshooting steps taken thus far (including attempts at debugging the code) and be written in a way that makes the question useful to future visitors.

because you can easily find the reason for the problem.

This is just an example of question which produces bunch of answer but is neither constructive nor at all helpful. But still it doesn't fall into existing close reasons.

Questions should be answered or closed based on their content, not the OP's ability to interpret the answer.

I do not feel we need a close reason for these questions.

They are on topic and answerable.

If you don't like them, don't answer them.

If you feel they are not useful, downvote them.

If you feel the OP didn't do enough research, downvote them.

If you feel it is too broad, vote to close it as too broad.

If it is missing important information that would be needed to answer it, close it as such.

We don't need another close reason for this. Adding another close reason won't stop users from answering them before they are closed (if they even ever reach closed status) which means there is little to no penalty to the OP since they received the answer they were looking for. Downvotes are far more effective than close votes because they immediately impact the question, can lead to a question ban, and with changes mentioned in the recent podcast downvotes will impact whether or not the questions appear on the front page making them that much more effective than close votes.

Working as intended, no change needed.

Now if only we could figure out how to give downvotes equal weight to upvotes so that a user doesn't gain reputation when a question has been upvoted and downvoted one-two times each.

Sure, abuse "Other" so we can have that removed too.
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Kevin BJun 6 '14 at 17:01

@KevinB Can you clarify in what way this is abusive? (I could understand a complaint of say 'relatively tedious' - but that would be for the user.)
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pnutsJun 6 '14 at 17:04

The close reason doesn't tell the user what is wrong with his question or how to fix it. It doesn't even remotely hint at what is wrong or how to improve. That's why the close reason was removed in the first place. Yes, it's a simple question, and yes it has a simple answer. It is clear by reading the question what he is looking for. It's a typical "icanhazcodes" question. downvote and move on, or close as unclear or not enough info.
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Kevin BJun 6 '14 at 17:07

@KevinB That Q is clear “I want one nested IF formula in cell C1” but this has nothing to do with the Title (there is no validation involved), does not require looping (tag) and where the same end result can be achieved without an IF function (almost without any function, just an operator). The Q does not lack info (almost too much!, you say yourself “It is clear … what he is looking for.”) yet you suggest “close as unclear or not enough info” – now where is the ‘abuse’?
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pnutsJun 6 '14 at 17:23

It is unclear to me, because i don't know what exactly he is asking. but i also don't use excel very often, so i refrain from voting in this case.
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Kevin BJun 6 '14 at 17:24

You write "It is clear by reading the question what he is looking for. It's a typical "icanhazcodes" question" AND "It is unclear to me, because i don't know what exactly he is asking."?!
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pnutsJun 6 '14 at 17:28

Yes, it is clear that he is asking for a formula to be written for him, and he presented the requirements of the formula. I don't understand the requirements. The way he worded it, it is unclear to me what the requirements exactly are. To someone who uses excel and regularly answers these questions though, they may be clear. In either case, the asker's understanding of the topic is irrelevant.
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Kevin BJun 6 '14 at 17:29

He seems to understand what a formula is, and that cells are labeled by letters and numbers, how much more understanding would he need to be able to understand the answer? How would he demonstrate that understanding?
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Kevin BJun 6 '14 at 17:36

@KevinB for first sentence, Yes but by muddying this with validation, looping and a function that seems unnecessary it is patent to anyone using Excel that OP "Lacks Minimal Understanding" (of the subject matter of the Q) - which is currently a valid off topic reason regardless of your view that "the asker's understanding of the topic is irrelevant". If it were not valid I would not have done what I did.
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pnutsJun 6 '14 at 17:42

For quite a few of these questions, it seems like you're describing too localized.

Really. For quite a few of these, they're not typos, and they don't fit any other close reason. However, no one is going to ever need to look at these. Why? They mainly haven't debugged their code, or they haven't done something, and it's a simple error.

I think "unlikely to help future visitors" is a very dangerous path to go down for what it's worth.
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Richard Le MesurierJun 2 '14 at 8:54

There might be other visitors in the future with exactly the same beginner questions (although they probably wouldn't find them).
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TrilarionJun 2 '14 at 10:49

2

Variants of "too localized" have the problem that questions in niche topics sometimes seem to be unfairly closed. Just because a question is of no interest to 99% of the community doesn't mean that the question isn't vitally important to a 1% minority who happen to work in an exotic language or ancient legacy framework.
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DNAJun 2 '14 at 13:29

There are good questions that are just simply about niche tags and there is no one at the present time who knows the answer. Is this too localized because the material, although possibly well presented, is too obscure? Such questions are likely to have low views and stay at 0, neither upvoted or downvoted. However they could be fit into the above proposal
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demongolemJun 3 '14 at 17:19

@demongolem That's... not what I was saying. I'm not sure how to word it in a way that people won't misinterpret it (that was the problem with TL), but mainly what I'm trying to get across is it's for these questions that no one will ever look at again. Not because their in a low traffic tag, but because the solution was only related to their specific problem, and no one will ever come across that problem again. Mainly problems due to not debugging, etc.
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hichris123Jun 3 '14 at 17:30

@Shog9 That's what I realized when crafting this answer. I tried to come up with a good close reason for it... but I just couldn't. I'm not sure why, but I can't explain why it's not useful to other people working with the same language...
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hichris123Jun 3 '14 at 17:32

As mentioned, several of the mentioned questions are covered. But there are questions which actually show that the person asking this question actually does lack minimal understanding and the respect to the people which are supposed to answer it. While I do understand that it is necessary to be polite as a community, the more SO gets popular it is equally important to not have it polluted by those "please-do-my-work-for-me-as-I-do-not-care-about-understanding-it" questions - and to make it chrystal clear that these kind of questions are not tolerated if not conforming the community rules. So my suggestion would be:

Question violates community guidelines in it's current form.

Please be so kind to ask it in a smart way,
which will greatly improve your chance of getting an equally smart answer.

This reason would literally apply to any reason to close / downvote the question. It doesn't really explain what's wrong with the question at all - it's about as good as replacing all close reasons with "There's something wrong with your question. See the help center".
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DukelingJun 2 '14 at 14:12

Well, I don't think so, as it is a rebuke subtle enough not to raise any bad feelings but clear enough that there was simply not enough effort put into the question, exceeding what is tolerable. But it was just a suggestion and let's agree to disagree ;)
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Markus W MahlbergJun 2 '14 at 14:51

1

@Markus, people come to have questions answered. Many of those people have good intentions but don't know the guidelines. Getting this message means they not only won't have answers, but even if they wanted to put effort in to improving their answer they aren't any better off than before their question got closed because this doesn't give them any information on what's wrong or how to fix it.
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jmac♦Jun 2 '14 at 23:46

Yes, but people unlikely to have searched for solutions to their problem are just as unlikely to go to another link and read the rules. Even if they do not care, stating the problem with a reasonable amount of specificity ON THE PAGE (instead of linking out) can at least inform future users (at one glance) as to what they need to do to get any similar questions answered.
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Dev KanchenJun 3 '14 at 21:58